Self Help In The Ghetto - World Federation of Jewish Child Survivors ...

“Am I My Brother’s Keeper?”
Slides taken
from
Self-Help in the
Ghettos of
Warsaw, Lodz,
and Kovno
By Geoffrey Brahmer
Cain & Abel by Tintoretto

Human Gene Map
Everything can be taken
from a man but the last
of the human freedoms -
to choose one’s attitude
in an given set of
circumstances, to
choose one’s own way.
--Auschwitz Survivor,
Victor E. Frankl

Oneg Shabbat Archives – Emanuel Ringleblum
Remembrance: To record and to teach future Generations

The time has come to gather all the rabble together in ghettos and then introduce
some epidemics and let them all die. --Heinrich Himmler, Nov, 1939

“About the Jews of
Europe, I have only
one point of view - the
Jews have to
disappear.”
-- Hans Frank, Dec. 16, 1941
Chief Administrator, General
Government

“Life in the Ghetto
amounts to a chapter
in the history of
cruelty; the depriving
of the Ghetto
residents of their
human image.”
-- Diary of Avraham Tory,
Kovno Ghetto, July 25, 1943
Diary of Ilya Gerber, Kovno Ghetto

Jewish Self-Help Could Have Different Sources
Janusz Korczak
& Children

• Jewish Councils
(Judenrats)
• Grassroots Groups
– (Political, Social,
Religious)
• Smugglers
• Armed Resistance
Sources of Self-Help
Image from Yad Vashem Photo Archives

Warsaw Ghetto
450,000 -- 500,000
November 16, 1940 – May 16, 1943
Lodz Ghetto
About 233,00
May 1, 1940 – August 31, 1944

Warsaw had a wall Lodz (Litzmannstadt) did
not have a wall

Warsaw Ghetto had sewers
In the Łódź ghetto, 95
percent of all apartments
had no sanitation service,
no water facilities, no
toilet facilities, no sewers.
--Isaiah Trunk Judenrat
12

Ghetto Leadership Differed
Lodz Ghetto
Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski
Warsaw Ghetto
Adam Czerniakow

Inequalities Existed in most Ghettos

Warsaw House / Tenant Committees

“There was a
stubborn, unending,
continuous battle to
survive. In view of the
unequal forces, it was
a labor of Sisyphus.
Jewish resistance was
the resistance of a fish
caught in a net, a
mouse in a trap, an
animal at bay.”
-- Alexander Donat, The
Holocaust Kingdom.

“The watchword of the organized
groups of the Jewish community
was, “To live with honor and die
with honor!”
--Last letter of Emanuel
Ringleblum, March 1, 1944

Lately we have seen an
interesting phenomenon.
In many 1940 house
committees, women are
replacing
2000 Self-Help
men who are
leaving Committees because they are
burned 10,000 out Volunteers and tired.
There are now house
committees
January,
where
1942
women
comprise the entire
leadership.
1600 Committees
6000-8000
Volunteers
Emanuel Ringleblum, June 10,
1942

“As he trudges home, he looks into a
window facing the street. It is a
hospital and surgeons are operating to
save a child’s life. “But why, why?
Why save? Why, to whom, to what is
the child being brought back?
Each day the profiles of our children,
of our wives,acquire the mourning
look of foxes, dingoes, kangaroos.
Our howls are like the cry of jackals . .
. . But we are not animals. We operate
on infants. It may be pointless or even
criminal. But animals do not operate
on their young.”
From a Chronicle of a Single Day,
October 1941, from Oneg Shabbat
by Leyb Goldin

“I have been slowly coming to the conclusion that the
whole balance of this self-help activity is simply that
people die more slowly. We must finally admit to
ourselves that we can save nobody from death; we don’t
have the means to.” --Rachel Auerbach, Feb. 2, 1942

Break up of House Committees
German Labor Quotas & Body Snatching

Return to the Warsaw Ghetto:
A Presentation By Geoffrey Brahmer
Typhus & Parówki
Disinfection Showers

Smuggling in Warsaw Ghetto
Kohn & Hellers

Emmanuel Ringelblum: “Three things are
invincible: the German Army, the British
Isles, and Jewish Smuggling.”
Abraham Ganzweich
The 13, Control Office to Combat
Black Market and Profiteering

“Each piece of bread that we buy on the open market is soaked with Jewish
blood.” --Abraham Lewin, Warsaw Diary,Tuesday, June 2, 1942

Child Smugglers in Prison, Warsaw Ghetto

The lives of the smugglers are
filled with danger. Not a day
passed when one of them was not
cut down by machine-gun fire . . .
But the smuggling did not stop. . .
-- Study on Smuggling, Oneg Shabbat
Archive, Mojzesz Passenstein

With Deportations to
Treblinka, Self-Help in
Warsaw Ghetto Moves to
Hiding, Escape and
Ultimately Resistance

Łódź: “Manchester of Poland”
No House Committees; Virtually No Smuggling

Ghetto Money in Lodz –
“Rumkies”

Rumkowski Versus the Unions
Breaking the Unions (1940/1941)

Community Flyer:
Hospital Workers Strike
Terror tactics used against us
will not break the action . . .
They are even arresting
strikers’ family members.
Within the last 24 hours, 35
people have been arrested. . .
December, 1940

Fekalists in Lodz

Stella Rein - Teacher

Elementary School in Lodz

Lodz Gymnasium Class, 1941

Lodz Schools End with Influx of Jewish
Refugees, Autumn, 1941

Lodz Gypsy Camp
Nov/Dec 1941
Physician Lottery
Dr. Dubski, Prague
Dr. Karol Boehm, Prague
Dr. Kraus, Prague
Dr. Vogel, Prague
Dr. Fiszel Altman, Lodz
Dr. Aron Nikelburg, Warsaw

Story of Dr.
Daniel Weiskopf
Hiding & Resistance
in Lodz Ghetto

Dr. Daniel
Weiskopt
Hans Biebow

Story of Rachel
Herschenberg
Midwife of Lodz

Anna Toronczyk, Rachel’s Twin

Salomea
Herschenberg
Kape

The Midwife from Lodz
New Birth is Symbol for Rebirth of Nation
Rachel Herschenberg
• “In a filthy, well camouflaged cellar my
mother examined the heavily bleeding
woman, removed the retained placenta by an
ungloved and not too clean hand. She waited
till the bleeding stopped, checked the baby,
and then returned to the camp alone.
• “Sally, ….it’s a healthy and beautiful baby
boy. I am concerned about the sterility….I
must see her (the mother again.)
• The Nazis took away from us the rights to be
pregnant and to bear children. I’m fully
trained to deliver babies, and babies are the
promise of life. . . . They are the symbol of the
rebirth of our nation.”
From The Midwife from Lodz, essay/memoir by
Dr. Salomea Kape
52

Lodz Cemetery, Murder Pits Prepared for
Jewish Clean Up Crew, but saved by
Russian Army who liberates Lodz on
January 19, 1945 .

Lodz Cemetery Pits, Photo taken July, 2011

Grave of Daniel Weiskopt, Lodz Cemetery
Photo taken July, 2011

Kovno
Ghetto
August 18, 1941 –
August 1, 1944
Large Ghetto: 27,500 people
Small Ghetto: 2,500 people

Martyrdom
Let us walk with heads held
high. Let no one think a
thought that would
disqualify his sacrifice. . .
The fire that consumes our
bodies is the fire that will
rebuild the Jewish people.”
-- Rabbi Elchonon Wasserman
Rav Elkchonon Wasserman

Leadership of Kovno Jewish Council
(Established August 4, 1941)
Avraham
Golub (Tory)
Secretary
Leib
Garfunkel
Deputy
Chairman
Dr. Elkhanan
Elkes,
Chairman
Yakov
Goldberg
Head of Labor
Office
Zvi Levin
Council
Advisor

Ghetto Workshops
“Work for Life”
• Pharmacy Laundry
• Pottery shop Tailoring
• Metal Shops Saddlery
• Carpentry Toy factory

Pharmacy Department: Smuggling Medicine, Links with
Jewish Underground / Partisans

Rabbits and Razor Blades

From the Diary of Ilya Gerber
Resistance in Song
The Jewish Brigades
Jewish brigades
In patches we parade.
Our troubles we bear,
We never despair!
Just because we do not whimper
When you beat us black and blue,
Do not think that broken bodies,
Mean a broken spirit, too.
--Avron Akselrod, Sept. 1941

Sixty years later, it seems to me that
among my memories, the most
audible (and visible) form of
resistance in the ghetto was music.
--from Courage was My Only Option: The
Autobiography of Roman Kent

“Jews, donate for the poor and for the naked the old
winter clothing and shoes you no longer need! Do
not stint! Give generously!”
Ezrah
Charitable
Society
Founded by 2 women
Miriam Shor
Mrs Krumer

Nazi Decree: May 7, 1942
Any Jewish woman found to be pregnant
will be put to death immediately.

Kovno Medical Department
• Perform births when
pregnancies are illegal
• Hide Typhus cases
• Will not give out names of
dentists in ghetto
• Establish Secret Asylum for
Mentally Disabled
• Establish Secret Orphanage in
Hospital
• Hospital used for secret prayer
meetings and holiday
celebrations
Dr. Moses Brauns
Director of Jewish Hospital
By Josef Schlesinger

Prohibitions Against
Education & Schools
(Aug / 1942)
Shmuel Rosental, Teacher
in Secret School

The Courageous
Teacher, Mrs. Segal
Hitler has promised that there
will be no more Purim
Festivals . . . Mrs. Segal
(teacher) pays no heed to bans
and prohibitions. Although the
Jewish School has been
officially closed on orders from
the Germans, this order has yet
to reach this courageous and
distinquished educator.
--Diary of Avraham Tory,
March 21, 1943

Book Aktions: Hiding Books in Kovno Ghetto

Attempting to “Remove” People from History
and the Importance of Jewish Cemeteries

Rabbi Ephraim Oshry

Rabbi Ephraim Oshry
• Can one cook on the sabbath?
• Should the critically ill fast on
Yom Kippur?
• Are marriages of convenience
sanctified?
• Can one entrust a Jewish child
to non-Jews?
• Can one risk life to join
partisans?
• Can one risk life for prayer &
sabbath?

Jewish Self-Help at Liberation
and Beyond

Rescuing Hidden Children in Lithuania

Miriam, Dr. Joel and Dr. Elkhanan Elkes

“Apart from seeing her husband
and children, two objects
sustained her in captivity.
One was a piece of bread,
which she always hid about
her person; the other was a
broken piece of comb. She
kept the bread in case
someone needed it more than
she; and no matter what,
morning and night, she
would comb her hair to
affirm her person.”
-- From Dr. Elkhanan Elkhanan
Elkes in the Kovno Ghetto: A
Son’s Holocaust Memoir

What we were unable to cry and shriek out
to the world, we buried in the ground . . . I
would love to see the moment in which the
great treasure will be dug up and scream
the truth at the world . . . May the treasure
fall into good hands, may it last into better
times, may it alarm and alert the world to
what happened . . We may now die in
peace.
-- David Graber, Age 19, Oneg Shabbat
Archives, Last Will and Testament

Tension and anxiety among us have
increased to an indescribable level . .
. . Will we be liberated, will we be
human again?
. . . If we survive . . .We will
remember the holy ones, the pure
ones, the guiltless heroes. We will
remember our fathers, our relatives,
acquaintances who were murdered,
who starved to death and suffered
indescribable torment. . . . . We will
remember. . ..
--Diary of Unknown Boy, In
Hebrew, Lodz Ghetto, July 31, 1944